It’s time for another edition of the PHR Mailbag. Topics in this one include Seattle, draft risers and fallers, the Rangers, playoff surprises, and compliance buyouts. If your question doesn’t appear here, look for it in last weekend’s mailbag.
BOSSports21: Future question – so 20-21 will be delayed, most likely resulting in a mid-summer 2021 end, thereby pushing the draft/FA back again, and presumably the expansion draft. How do you think this will impact Seattle if the expansion draft isn’t until July or Aug, 2021 and you’re starting that October?
M34: Does Seattle benefit or suffer from the recent world events impact on the NHL?
I don’t think a potentially shortened turnaround from the end of 2020-21 to the start of 2021-22 really affects much in the scheme of things for Seattle. They first have to pick their team and they’ll have data and scouting from that season (plus this one too) to use to make their information. That’s not really affected by the timeline.
They might, however, be positively affected by the salary cap crunch. Vegas was used to offload some bad contracts but it seemed like teams would learn their lesson for this one. However, the expected flattening of the cap due to the pandemic is simply going to force some teams to have to go through that procedure again and that should be to Seattle’s benefit.
A shorter offseason might ultimately expedite some of those moves (or at least squeeze them into a narrower window) but a lot of these could still be pre-arranged while the playoffs were going on. They’ll have ample time to prepare so even if their team ultimately gets built in a rather short period of time, they’ll be well-positioned to do so.
Winter in Colorado: Detroit shocked most when they drafted Moritz Seider 6th overall, a possible reach. Opposite of that, Arthur Kaliyev was drafted at 33 overall. He went lower than most mocks had him going, a definite slide. Which two players do you see filing these roles in the upcoming draft?
The first thought I had when I read this question was that Russian goalie Yaroslav Askarov could actually fit in both categories. Not everyone believes that a goalie should go in the top-10 and if he’s taken there, some would call it a reach. But if enough teams believe in not ‘reaching’ for a goalie early, he could fall deep enough to qualify as a slide as well.
Jake Sanderson is one that might qualify for the possible reach category. He seems to be somewhat of a late bloomer (which is hard to do considering there haven’t been any games for basically three months) but there are rankings that have the defenseman outside the top-20 and others as high as third overall. He looks like someone that’s in the 10-13 range but if there’s a team that sees him as the number two blueliner on the board behind Jamie Drysdale (or number one even), they’ll do like Detroit did with Seider a year ago and grab him early.
In terms of a possible slider, I’ll take Mavrik Bourque. He was top ten in the QMJHL in points per game this season, second behind only Alexis Lafreniere in terms of 18-year-olds in their first year of NHL draft eligibility. He’s ranked from the mid-teens to mid-twenties by most publications but concerns about his size, skating, and injuries make him a candidate to slide back. A team that gets him in the late first round or early second (like Kaliyev) should be quite happy to see him there.
acarneglia: Who starts for the Rangers in goal? Are the Rangers the biggest sleeper in the whole postseason?
The debate over who starts is almost certain to be covered in our storylines for them which will run in the coming days so I won’t bother getting into the complete discussion here. I do think it’s Igor Shesterkin’s spot to lose though. His strong play is a large factor in them simply getting to this spot as they weren’t really going anywhere before they brought him up partway through the season. I also think he’s the one that has the best chance at getting on a bit of a run. The lack of experience is concerning but for me, Shesterkin is the one with the most short-term upside (as well as having the best long-term upside). In a short series, I’m going for that over giving one last nod to Henrik Lundqvist or potentially trying to aid Alexandar Georgiev’s trade value.
As for part two of your question, I’ll get to that momentarily.
wu tang killa beez: Who would you see as the biggest surprise in these playoffs? After all, there is no momentum for anyone, all the teams are a little rusty and are starting a new season.
Two playing styles come to mind as ones that can really stand out and make a run. One is that a bunch of players get hot offensively for a few weeks and the other is a team that can get a hot goalie and/or gets their defensive system down quicker than everyone else. Even better are the teams that can get all of the above and those are the ones that have the potential to surprise.
In the East, that pick would be the Rangers. They had a top-five offense in the regular season and while career years from Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad played a big part of that, the supporting cast is still relatively strong. They get good production from the back end as well. And if Shesterkin plays like he did after being recalled (and that’s a big if given the inexperience), they can win a few rounds. Of the teams that weren’t in a true playoff spot when the pandemic hit, they’re the biggest sleeper.
I also want to talk about Arizona a little bit as a potential surprise team in the West. The goaltending was there all year and if Darcy Kuemper falters, Antti Raanta has shown that he can carry the load for a while without the team skipping a beat. They have the defensive structure in place that they should be able to pick up again without much difficulty despite the layoff as they aren’t really integrating any newcomers from the trade deadline into the fold. And with Taylor Hall, Phil Kessel, and Clayton Keller, they have a group of players that are capable of carrying the load offensively. They didn’t do it much during the season but if they play to their potential, the Coyotes go from a decent team to a dangerous one.
aias: Do you think compliance buyouts will happen?
As you noted in a follow-up comment, I did touch on this in a mailbag last month but that wasn’t really a prediction on whether they’d happen and instead answered some more specific questions about it including my proposal on how they could make it a little different.
I think these will be tied to the ongoing CBA talks which are tied to the ongoing Return to Play talks. If the NHL and the NHLPA can reach an agreement on an extension, a revised financial framework is likely going to come to fruition as well. It will probably involve some sort of combination of increased escrow, a multi-year negotiation of the Upper Limit without the NHLPA having the ability to use the inflator, salary deferrals, and some revisions as to what is and isn’t classified as HRR.
A fixed salary cap at or around the current $81.5MM next season would be a problem for quite a few teams. It wouldn’t be pretty but it would be manageable. Keeping that rate for two years (or longer) is going to cause a lot of problems for a lot of teams and cause significant damage to the UFA market. There probably isn’t much of an appetite for them if the cap problem is a one-year thing but if it goes longer, then a lot of general managers are going to want it and a lot of pending free agents will want it too to preserve their chances of getting a good contract on the open market.
I think they ultimately do reach a multi-year agreement about running a fixed salary cap so yes, I do think there will be some form of compliance buyout when all is said and done.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Thanks Brian!